Plenary inspiration

“ In the Constitution and By-Laws of the New Thought Alliance, published in 1916, the purposes of the society are "to teach the infinitude of the Supreme One, Divinity of Man and his Infinite possibilities through the creative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of the Indwelling Presence which is our source of Inspiration, Power, Health and Prosperity." ”

“ The place of experience, in the case of most members of the Assembly, was taken by a large imagination, a boundless optimism, a vast store of philosophic tags and democratic phrases, a fatal fluency of speech, a fine belief in logic, an academic disregard of the rude facts of practical existence. Never was any body of men so much inspired by hope and confidence, so full of honourable enthusiasm, so convinced of its own ability, or so fixed in its honest desire, to regenerate the world. ”

“ Thus his life was, for its steady growth, its soft majesty, and exhibition of a faith never fierce and sparkling, never dim, a happy omen for the age. Thus gently and gradually may new organizations of great principles be effected now! May it prove that, at least in the more advanced part of the world, revolutions may be effected without painful throes! ”

“ Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude that binds together the ages,—that balances creeds, colors, eras. Through Nature, man, forms, spirit, the eternal conspiracy works and weaves. ”

“ Hence, among the strong, withdrawal to private study and contemplation, that they might be "alone with the Alone;" solemn yet glad devotedness to the Divine leadings in the inmost will; calm concentration of thought to wait for and receive wisdom; dignified independence, stern yet sweet, of fashion and public opinion; honest originality of speech and conduct, exempt alike from apology or dictation, from servility or scorn. ”

“ Once captivated by the beauty and sublimity of the true life, by what is sacred and pathetic in this strife of humanity for truth, justice, and brotherly love, his heart holds the fascination of it. Gradually everything subordinates itself to this powerful and persistent charm. The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within him: the essential commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. ”

“ Those, indeed, who have possessed themselves of this power to any extraordinary degree, have been considered as inspired, and their great achievements conceived to have been directed by councils, and sustained by energies of a divine or super-mundane nature. ”

“ In the greatest inspiration, the mind immediately becomes the most engaged, the effects of the mind become reflections, but reflection by its nature is instructive, so the beautiful or perfect reflexion is associated with the greatest inspiration, so also the citizen's speech in the presence of the king will be the highest, most powerfully restrained, speech of keenest sentiment controlled by the most respectful prudence, one whose conduct to kept within the rules. ”

“ Whenever the qualitative standard had been operative, it was necessary that the leaders in any form of creative action should be men of highly developed intellect, fine sensibility, wide and penetrating vision, nobility of instinct, passion for righteousness, and a consciousness of the eternal force of charity, honour, and service. ”

“ And so in groups where debate is earnest, and especially on high questions, the company become aware that the thought rises to an equal level in all bosoms, that all have a spiritual property in what was said, as well as the sayer. They all become wiser than they were. It arches over them like a temple, this unity of thought, in which every heart beats with nobler sense of power and duty, and thinks and acts with unusual solemnity. All are conscious of attaining to a higher self-possession. It shines for all. ”

“ And in the Symposium he says, “That there is instilled into all the natural love of generating what is like, and in men of generating men alone, and in the good man of the generation of the counterpart of himself. ”

“ With our bodies, with our minds, with our souls, with all our powers and faculties, with all our intuitions and endeavours, with the science of the sages, with the history of the ages, with the minstrels' chants and the artists' "witcheries," with all these we glorify Thee as the Eternal Reality. In Thee as the all-embracing Unity, we feel unified. ”

“ The first condition is absolute love and harmony amongst the members of the assembly. They must be wholly free from estrangement and must manifest in themselves the Unity of God, for they are the waves of one sea, the drops of one river, the stars of one heaven, the rays of one sun, the trees of one orchard, the flowers of one garden. Should harmony of thought and absolute unity be nonexistent, that gathering shall be dispersed and that assembly be brought to naught. ”

“ And then we realised that, just as all the arts and all the religions and all the political movements were one at the top, that Politics and Art and Religion were one at the next eminence; that the Inner Council and the Big Mill and the Shop Itself were one at the top, just as Wisdom, Love and Power are; as Goodness, Beauty and Truth are ”

“ But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment ”

“ It is not therefore a vague aspiration or a faint wish, but an active faith, an energetic volition which creates, in the freed political Power, the reality of its own moral personality and of its collective consciousness. ”

“ And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of the unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the realizing of the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of the I, my order of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body politic also will culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body imbued with glory, invested with divine power and might, the King, the Emperor. ”

“ But to throw light upon our subject—the subject of truth, the glory of God and the glory of man—we remark here, that while truth is one, a vast and infinite unity, its departments are many, a multiplicity of branches, each bearing fruits of life, but all from the same root and stem, each branch adapted to some specific and peculiar condition, circumstance want and interest of man; to meet those conditions, supply those wants, and secure those interests, and all resulting in the full and perfect happiness of man. ”

“ Confronted by the existing order and the ordinary prose of life they appear before us as individuals with personal aims of love, honour, ambition, and ideals of world reform, ideals in the path of which that order presents obstacles on every side. ”

“ If our intellectual and spiritual thought is aflame, whether as nation or individual, we may purify it, energize it, give it power to form and arrange the atoms around it—and we have a new literature, a new and beneficent, creative social vehicle of intercourse, mutual understanding, and human unification. ”

“ Each student adheres, by temperament and by habit, to the first or to the second of these gods of the mind. By religion, he tends to unity; by intellect, or by the senses, to the many. A too rapid unification, and an excessive appliance to parts and particulars, are the twin dangers of speculation. ”

“ The countless generations who have knelt in the same spot, have uttered the same words, have taken the same oaths, have wept the same tears, have rejoiced in the same hope, add the force of example to the power of precept. Time thus transforms the act of reason, which founded legitimacy, into a feeling of affection, gratitude and respect. ”

“ Final success and triumph come largely by this kind of condensation and concentration, and the stern and severe lopping off of the indulgence of the egotistical genius, which is human discipline, and the best exponent of the doctrine of unity also. This is the straight and the narrow way along which genius, if it walk but faithfully, sows as it goes in the dramatic pathway all the flowers of human passion, hope, love, terror, and triumph. ”

“ Of austere and commanding virtue, irreproachable in his self-denying life, trained in all the learning of the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the terror of the hierarchy, and found the laity ready enough to listen and to act upon doctrines which satisfied their worldly aspirations as well as their spiritual longings. ”

“ The ideal assembly, which we figure by the communion of the saints, is a coming together of men and women in the highest aims and views to which Humanity can be a party.
Passing from immediate to projected consciousness, I can imagine expression itself to spring from want. The sense of the incompleteness of life in itself and in each of its acts calls for this effort to show, at least, what life should be,—to vindicate the shortcoming of action out of the fulness of speech. This that eats and sleeps is so little of the man! ”

“ This single art has, amongst every free people, especially in peaceful settled governments, met with the greatest encouragement, and been attended with the most powerful efficacy: for what can be more surprising, than that, amidst an infinite multitude, one man should appear, who shall be the only, or almost the only man who can do what nature has put in every man’s power? ”

“ In order to succeed, we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. ”

“ We are enabled to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and contending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior, an excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the counsels which are so deeply to affect them.”
It is not possible to escape deep conviction of the wisdom of these reflections. They penetrate to the heart of all practicable methods of reform. ”

“ Standing in this presence, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, feeling the emotions which no one may know until he senses the great weight of responsibility for himself, I must utter my belief in the divine inspiration of the founding fathers. ”

“ All culture, in whatever line, must pass through these two stages of estrangement and of reunion; the reunion being not of two different things, but the recognition of itself by thought, and its acceptance of itself as itself. ”

“ It is, to illustrate, physical, mental, and spiritual, or more elaborately, it is athletic, industrial, political, intellectual, moral, æsthetic, and religious, and in its social life has developed institutions answering to these different phases of itself. It is, again, lawful and lawless, old and young, conservative and radical, sympathetic and selfish. But whatever the mode of analysis or division or dichotomy, the unity of experience embraces all the elements, aspects, or relations that are discovered. ”

“ Whether, indeed, we should work for organic unity or not will evoke large divergence of opinion. Whether or not we should cultivate the spirit of unity—the atmosphere in which the beautiful flower of unity will come to perfection—this is a question upon which there can surely be no divergence of view. ”

“ Genius always forgives; the spirit always recalls and cherishes the letter that has given it birth.
So the institution as an historical fact, whether we see it with the eyes of Machiavelli or with those of a pope, with the eyes of Protagoras or with those of Socrates, with the eyes of the Pharisees or with those of Christ, may show worship turning into use, the sacred becoming secular, but it shows also the life of society becoming enriched; it shows investment for future gain; it shows doubt, not destroying anything, but achieving only what is real; it shows the life of the spirit. ”

“ When you feel after the heart-strings of the people and touch them with the touch-stone of truth, all good men and women will answer to the test, showing that the spirit of truth, of intelligence, of union, of virtue, and integrity still exists and prevails in the bosom of all the faithful so that when we meet together in the capacity of a Conference, every opposing feeling to these noble qualities and truths in the character of a Saint is subdued, the Spirit of the Lord becomes the prevailing influence, and we feel as we have often felt on former occasions. ”

“ For her true mission is not that of universal pedagogue—her true mission is to prove to the incredulous Powers the reality of her own political ideals—to make Democracy, not a sublime postulate, but a self-evident truth. ”

“ Better far, as life transcends books, we may see, and yet more, forsee, the growth of civic consciousness and conscience, the awakening of citizenship towards civic renascence. All this the production of such volumes would at one imply and inspire—life ever producing its appropriate expression in literature, and literature reacting upon the ennoblement of life. ”

“ When we think of this as the ruling character of our future citizens, and so the ruling character of our future world, we begin to see that the education of the spirit may represent a political no less than a transcendental ideal. It alone can bring about that regeneration, working from the heart outwards, of which the prophets of every country have dreamed. ”